All Yours
by ProteanBlue
Summary: Zappa, the most ordinary guy in the world, falls for the most extraordinary girl. But nothing could possibly come of it. He already belongs to someone who above all else hates people in love. Chapter 4 is up, and I love reviews!
1. Cpt 1: Lost & Found

**Lost & Found**

"Too late, my time has come

Sends shivers down my spine

Body's aching all the time

Goodbye everybody, I've got to go

Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth

Mama, ooo-

I don't want to die

I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all…"

"Oh, Doctor Faust… why?"

Zappa walked slowly out of town, watching his shoes kick clouds of dust from the gravel road with his head hung low. He felt numb.

He'd placed all his hopes on the assumption that once he found the reclusive Faust, everything would be better again. Everything in his life would go back to normal. He'd finally be able to go home. But now he was just lost as he had been the day before.

The mental wear-and-tear he'd been going through recently was starting to show on the outside as well. His body-hugging top and baggy shorts were no longer their usual immaculate white; and his black socks and gloves showed spots of dust as well. The two canvas bags attached to his belt drooped sadly down to his knees. Gauze bandages wrapped themselves around parts of his legs, arms and chest, and a nasty-looking bruise swelled under one eye. The pink heart design on the front of his shirt now seemed much too cheerful for his sorry appearance.

Most of his face was still averted, buried in the thick collar of his shirt; but he raised his eyes for a look at the rows of houses around him. The street was strangely empty, though he thought he saw pairs of eyes peering out at him from behind closed doors and draped windows.

"How could they know… but they're hiding from me!" he wondered out loud.

As if in response to that depressing thought, one of his wounds suddenly burned white-hot with pain. Zappa grabbed it reflexively - a large sword gash in his side recently sewn shut by the doctor.

"Ah, ah, ah…" he winced, "Jeez! Is this ever gonna stop?"

He just wanted to lay down somewhere and rest, but Doctor Faust had warned him leave town as quickly as possible. He'd said that it was contact with other people that was triggering Zappa's mysterious fainting spells – and it made perfect sense in retrospect. As he looked back at his memories of the past few weeks, the only blanks appeared where he had fainted after meeting someone. Life would be much more difficult if he did as the doctor ordered, but on the other hand he didn't want the thing inside him to come out again…

"Oh, God…" he moaned to himself, momentarily sickened by just the thought of it. He really didn't want to think about that at the moment. "J-just keep walking…just keep walking…I'm going to do exactly w-what he said."

So the young man just kept walking, though his body shuddered with pain and fear, because it was the only course he knew he could take. He walked through abandoned streets, lights flickering on inside each home he passed as the evening darkness grew. Finally, the clusters of houses became more intermittent and eventually disappeared entirely. In their place sprouted tall oaks, growing increasingly dense as he walked away from town.

Zappa sighed in relief once the houses were behind him. He looked over one shoulder – the town was still in sight – he had to go still farther to the west, into that dark grove and setting sun. But the grim sentinels of trees loomed dark above him, and it was still getting darker.

He kept walking; the dust of the road replaced by the subtle, musty smell of leaves. The dappled shadows from the branches above began to twist into alien shapes around him as night deepened. Every once in a while his foot would snap a small twig, the sound making him start and whirl around looking for some wild animal. His eyesight was fading quickly though – if anything was really there he had no hope of seeing it. He knew it was finally time to stop for the day when he tripped over a huge fallen tree trunk he didn't even see coming, and landed sprawled and aching on the other side.

"Ow… ow… ow… not good," Zappa gritted through his teeth. This time it was his leg that was acting up. Sitting up in a pile of dry leaves; he stretched out the injured leg and tried massaging it. That didn't work. Exhausted and defeated, he let himself fall backwards onto the forest floor.

That's when he first noticed the crickets. It was now pitch-black in the forest, and the insects saw fit to begin their nightly song. The sound was both comforting and sad in a strange sort of way.

He felt around blindly until he found the fallen tree he'd stumbled over. After pulling himself towards it, he lay down curled-up with his back against the rough bark, feeling somehow smaller than usual. The crickets' soothing song relaxed him, and his eyes started to droop. He didn't even bother to try and find his diary as he usually did every night.

"I guess this isn't so bad," he said quietly, but tears were starting to well up in his eyes despite his self-reassurances.

Outside his bedroom, there were always crickets singing in the evening. They were reminding him of home, not enough to let him sink into memory but just enough for the pangs of homesickness to surface.

It was very dark.

And Zappa knew he was going to have to be alone for a very long time.

But somehow, he slept.

* * *

He awoke with a start, as he usually did; but for once, Zappa found himself in the same place he remembered falling asleep in. After making a quick scan of the forest clearing, he relaxed visibly, sinking into the cool grass beneath him. He was still here within the trees and still safe. 

Sitting up, he stretched luxuriously, his muscles feeling much better than they had the day before. His joints were still felt out of whack though, and they would ache whenever he bent them too far or put weight on them.

"Wow, I feel great!" he exclaimed despite this fact. Maybe it was due more to the fact that it was a bright and beautiful morning than his actual health. Zappa's despair had evaporated under the warm rays of the sun. He simply sat peacefully for a moment before remembering something important.

"Oh no, my diary! I completely forgot about it."

He zipped open one of his huge canvas bags, fishing around inside for a moment before pulling out a small durable-looking brown book. He flipped slowly through the pages, slightly yellowed and packed to the brim with his own neat cursive handwriting.

"I should've done it yesterday, I've got too much to write about now…" he mumbled, finding his thin black pen and taking it deftly in hand. Forgoing any planning, the tip touched the parchment and started moving.

_'Dear Mother,_

_I hope that you're still doing well. Yesterday I finally found Doctor Faust. He wore a paper bag on his head for some reason and must have been at least 10 feet tall! I didn't think at first that it could possibly be him. I've never seen any doctor that looked that weird before! But after I had another fainting spell, Doctor Faust told me that he knew what was wrong with me.'_

Zappa had to pause for a moment. He took a deep, shuddering breath. He tried to rest his pen back on paper several times, but felt an uncharacteristic loss of words. It took a minute to work up the courage to give a voice to the issue he'd been avoiding for the past day. When he went back to writing, the words came out slower and looked scrawled into the page.

_'He said that there is something living inside me that makes me do things while I'm unconscious. Sometimes it does terrible things. There is nothing a doctor can do about it now. He said that if I don't stay away from other people both myself and others will keep getting hurt.'_

He couldn't look at the words he'd just written. Averting his eyes from them, he had to keep writing.

_'I'm sorry I won't be able to come home for a while. I'm sorry that I won't be finding a wife either. Please understand, I don't want to hurt any one. Maybe Doctor Faust will find a cure for me soon, but I can't be sure. I think I will live here in the woods for a while. I'll come home as soon as I can to take care of you, Mother.'_

Usually writing in his diary helped put his chaotic life back into perspective, but now he just felt miserable. Zappa silently closed the leather-bound book without proofreading it. It wasn't until he started placing his journal back into its spot in his bag that… he saw it.

There was a dark splotch, a stain on the white, skintight sleeve of his shirt. Zappa dropped the diary to get a better look at it.

The stain was dark red, and flaked as he touched it. It definitely wasn't there yesterday.

"Oh no…" he said, feeling lightheaded, "It's blood. It's b-blood…"

He checked his whole body over twice; there were no new cuts or gashes anywhere. The blood was not his. Suddenly, his whole mind was thrown into doubt.

"What happened this time… where could this have come from!" he cried, looking frantically around the clearing where he sat. No evidence presented itself, but there was also something else missing from the scene.

"Wait… wait, where is it! There was a tree trunk right here! I fell over it last night!"

Leaping to his feet, he ran circles around the perimeter of the trees, looking for anything remotely similar to the fallen tree. Nothing but straight, healthy oaks and tangled underbrush greeted him.

"No way… this is different? This really is a different place!" Zappa said, panic making his voice frenzied and high-pitched. His breath started rasping inside his chest. The warm morning sun and cool dewy grass suddenly didn't seem so inviting anymore. Grabbing his diary, now wet and cold from the grass it lay discarded in, he shoved it back into his bag and took off running as fast as he could into the trees.

* * *

The stain was not coming off. No matter how hard or vigorously he rubbed at it, or how much water from his canteen he dumped on it, he could not remove that red spot. 

His eyes moist and red and throat choked up with guilt, Zappa had been plodding slowly along picking at the stain for a while now. After escaping from the clearing he woke up in, he tired himself out quickly and had to stop running.

"Come on, please… please, come out... argh, I can't take this any more!" he stopped walking for a second to throw the stick he'd been scrubbing with into a nearby bush in frustration. Though he'd succeeded in making the stain a little bit more brownish, it wasn't going away. Zappa stopped one tear from rolling down his cheek before he began walking again. He still couldn't stop looking at it, though. To him it was undeniable evidence of the unknown sin he'd committed.

The trees started blurring together into one indistinguishable green mass as he hiked. There was no way to mark which direction he'd come from, but he tried his best to stay on a westward path by keeping his back to the morning sun. Nothing seemed familiar yet at least, so with any luck he wasn't going in circles. The lingering lump of guilt in his chest kept him from feeling the slightest bit hungry, but he did manage to take a sip of water. As soon as he did, he was sorry. Shaking the canteen, he was disappointed by how little it sloshed inside.

"Great. I have no idea where to find water around here… I don't want to die of thirst out in this forest…" Zappa moaned in desperation. He'd wasted far too much trying to wash away the stain.

Almost as soon as he placed his water back into the pack, Zappa heard an eerie, high-pitched sound. It echoed strangely against the closely packed tree trunks. It took him a second to identify it, but once he did, it froze his blood – somewhere, a woman was screaming.

All color drained from his face. The scream stopped as suddenly as it had begun.

"W-w-where did that come from! Oh, great…" he stuttered. A few days ago he would have chivalrously tried to locate a woman in trouble, but now he was driven by completely different motives. The only thing he could do was try to keep himself away from her for both their sakes…

It took a little while longer for him to realize it, but he would fail at that as well.

In his westward path, he eventually stepped into another small grassy clearing hidden within the trees. As dappled light gave way to the dry open heat of the noontime sun, Zappa looked around under the open sky. He then saw the figure laid out prone on the other side of the grass.

Dread filling him, he started backing slowly out of the clearing. He almost made it out, too - but before he could he heard the figure let out a soft moan of pain. The sound pulled his heartstrings painfully taut.

"I can't just leave someone out here like that… I just can't." he whispered. He stood motionless in indecision for a moment longer before giving in. Against his better judgment, he stepped out into the center of the clearing, trying to get a better look at the injured person.

"It'll be ok," he tried to convince himself, "I'm not gonna faint. I'm not gonna faint…"

The figure was a woman, wearing a strange, partially revealing black-and-white blouse held together in the middle by straps. A pair of dark black leggings covered her legs, which ended in sturdy-looking boots. Her long, vividly blue hair was tied into loose pigtails with a pair of ribbons. She lay in the center of what looked like a crater in the dirt; the grass, leaves and undergrowth had been thrown back in a circle around her with great force.

"Oh, no… what could have happened…?" Zappa whispered, wide-eyed, before crying out as he jumped backwards in fright. The woman shifted suddenly, and he caught sight of two feathery wings, one black and the other white, growing out of her back.

"Gah! What the heck… is she an… angel?" he said, now bordering on hysteria. "Oh, God, if the angels are falling out of the sky, what hope is there for anyone… what hope for me!"

He stepped into the crater and touched one of the woman's arms gently. It felt real enough…

"Um… miss?" Zappa had no idea how he should address an angel, and that worried him for some reason. "Miss… a-are you alright? Miss…"

In response to his voice, the woman started moving again. He drew back abruptly as he watched her rise to her feet, though her eyes were still closed tight. He suddenly noticed that she had a thin black tail, which was now lashing angrily like a cat's. Her wings started unfurling, making her seem several times larger than she had been just a second ago.

"A-a-are you angry with me? I'm sorry, I'll g-get out of…" Zappa's frantic apology was cut short by fear as the black wing started changing, twisting into a frightful shape. A skull's face appeared out of the feathers, surrounded by a dark cowl. The feathers themselves hardened into black blades, and clawed hands started sprouting out from between them.

Necro was awake, and his bony jaws opened and howled an enraged, bloodthirsty cry.

"**KYOOOOOOOHHHH…**"

Whether Zappa fainted from sheer terror or from something more sinister, he would never find out.

* * *

-Author's Note- 

Hello and thank you for reading chapter one of my fic! Sorry if it ended up too long… I decided to combine two small chapters, as you can probably tell from its name. Also, in case you haven't figured it out, this takes place directly after Zappa's story mode ending #1, but the story modes of all other characters are slightly offset in terms of their time frame. This allows the story to kind of weave through the events of GGX2 before it takes off on its own. Also, the quote at the beginning of the chapter is from Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody"- and if you didn't know that, then you need to go find one of their albums as soon as possible, because your life lacks all meaning without it. XD

Remember to leave a review, please… God knows I need it. T.T


	2. Cpt 2: Truce & Pursuit

**Truce & Pursuit**

* * *

As Zappa's mind sank into dark unconsciousness, his body went completely limp and started to collapse. But before he could hit the grass, something unseen caught him in midair, keeping him suspended for a moment. Every muscle in his body suddenly tensed to its limit with a harsh jolt, and his back arched in agony. A scream tore itself out of his chest. 

Necro saw his opponent vulnerable, and tried to smash the wiry-looking young man into the ground with one giant clawed fist.

Zappa somehow threw himself out of the way, though he had been writhing in pain just a moment before. Eyeing him with its hungry red gaze, but this time with greater caution, the black wing drew back, folding himself against the woman's body. Zappa twitched, then flopped forward to face the monster. His eyes had rolled back into his head, making them seem blankly white.

"I'LL CURSE THAT DOCTOR STRAIGHT TO HELL! EVERYTHING'S RUINED!" an impossibly high-pitched, piercing voice came out of his mouth. He took notice to his attacker for the first time. "AND YOU… DIIEEE!"

Something invisible seemed to grab him from behind, and then he went flying, hurled across clearing to slam into the creature. He hit with much greater force than Necro had expected; both he and the woman crashed painfully into the trunk of a large tree as they were thrown backwards.

Zappa laughed in that same maniacal, shrieking voice. He had risen from the ground and was crawling menacingly towards the winged woman.

As she rose to her feet, stumbling slightly, her white wing began to unfurl. The pale face of a beautiful woman rose gracefully out of the feathers. Undine, the white wing's spirit, had awoken as well. Extending one delicately fingered hand, a spear of ice exploded out from her palm, flying straight at Zappa. But before it could hit him, a figure suddenly materialized just in front of the young man and the projectile shattered where it touched it. The demon controlling him was revealed. He was the puppet, and here was the master.

The figure was the thin, frail figure of a young woman wasted away to the bone. Her skin looked waxy and corpselike, and filthy, damp black hair hung in front of her face, obscuring it completely. The nightgown she wore looked old and stained. But S-Ko emanated such an aura of pure hatred and evil that both the woman's wing-spirits focused carefully on her.

"_What are you?"_ Undine's voice was like a harp. She shielded the woman with her pearly, soft feathers from the pollution of the evil spirit.

"TWO HUNDRED YEARS OF PAIN," Zappa stood shakily behind S-Ko's semi-transparent form, his mouth forming her words. "YOU WILL FEEL IT, TOO." Suddenly, she seemed to lose all reason.

"NOW DIE AND ROT, YOU BITCH!" She cursed just before disappearing.

Zappa was advancing again, and while the image of S-Ko had been distracting both wings, he'd summoned a weapon.

A giant, bloody sword was floating ominously in the air next to him He was grinning as he jumped skyward, and the blade danced airborne around him before it turned and flew eagerly at its opponent. Far too quickly to see, it lashed out and sliced into flesh.

There was a soft cry; the woman herself and not her two protectors had been hit this time. Her long tail suddenly whipped out from behind her, knocking Zappa's blade away just as it was spinning around him for another attack. Like a black python, it coiled itself around his now exposed neck. She drew him in close, and squeezed down harder as he started to struggle.

The woman's angelic face remained blank as always, eyes closed. It was Necro that spoke, his red eyes blazing from somewhere within their deep sockets in his skull's face.

"**Truce**," he growled.

Zappa's laughter cut as keenly with derision as the sword's edge, but he stopped writhing for a moment and turned his white eyes towards the robed creature.

"WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'LL EVEN LET YOU LIVE?" he sneered.

"**Kill, kill together,**" the low rumbling voice answered. "**You and I. Kill Humans.**"

"_NO!"_ Undine shrieked, enraged. Her beautiful flawless face twisted into a snarl as she savagely lunged at the young man still strangled helpless by the neck. Necro's black claw stretched impossibly far, knocking her aside. His eyes were burning again, this time at the scent of victory.

A second pair of arms, pale and veined, sprouted out of Zappa's shoulders and wrenched him free of the tail. He hit the ground with a thud, facedown in the dirt.

"TRUCE ACCEPTED…" his muffled voice rose from the ground as he began to laugh. Standing directly above him, the woman remained motionless as her two wing spirits thrashed and clawed at each other. They were too preoccupied to see the starved, cadaverous figure appear behind them within the trees.

As S-Ko walked slowly towards them, her dirty black hair parted in the middle, revealing a yellowed, toothy smile.

"YESSSS…." Zappa said, now in gales of hysterical laughter.

Reaching out with one bony hand, the demon grabbed hold of a handful of Undine's lustrous white feathers. For one instant, the two ethereal entities' faces met, one contorted by her sadistic glee, the other by terror.

Then S-Ko's dirty nails raked down the pure white mass of feathers, stripping them away to reveal lines of blood. Her victim's mouth opened wide in a silent scream; she quivered under the force of the curse, every feather standing on end, before her face sank into them once more. The white wing crumpled into itself, raw and bloody, and moved no more.

Necro and S-Ko turned to face each other. The deed was done. The two dark creatures looked and saw the other's true name. They understood.

Just as the black-robed creature melted into the velvety dark feathers, the frail woman standing behind him faded away, leaving nothing but a cold gust of wind in her wake.

The only one left standing in the clearing was the blue haired woman, her brow furrowed in vague worry and arms folded around herself protectively. She sank to her knees, then slid down to the ground before she fell into a deep sleep, her ragged white wing draped over her. Zappa lay exhausted and still as death where he'd fallen a few feet away.

Both their demons were at peace… for now.

* * *

"Gruesome…" was the only comment the city constable could make. She looked pale and slightly green despite all her years of police experience. Adjusting her wire-rimmed spectacles with one finger, she closed the door behind her. 

"Unthinkable," the sheriff added, his old face lined with worry. "There's no way... it's inhuman."

The home where the crime had taken place had been cordoned off with a makeshift wire fence, officers stationed at each corner. On the outside it seemed tranquil enough. That's why the door and windows remained pointedly shut.

Both the constable and sheriff stood outside in the bright sun, uncomfortably close to the front door. They'd just toured the inside of the house, and were not anxious to go back in. As they watched the horizon, the figure they'd been urgently expecting suddenly appeared over the crest of a hill.

Ky Kiske, head of the Sacred Order of Holy Knights, had been riding on horseback through most of the night. As soon as he dismounted next to the scene in question, local police officers stumbled over themselves to take his mount and replace it with a fresh one.

"Oh, thank God… he's finally here," the sheriff muttered under his breath.

The constable wasn't quite so relieved. She studied the young knight as he strode towards them; he seemed much too young to be able to fill his prestigious position. Still, the immaculate state of the young man's white-and-blue overcoat, clothes, and hair, combined with the look of deadly seriousness that seemed carved into his face gave out an aura of complete control.

"Officer Kiske?" the constable questioned as he stopped in front of her, one hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. He nodded.

"Please, let's go inside quickly," he said briefly. "From what I've been able to learn so far, time may still be on our side."

"Of course," she complied, though she was anything but eager to re-enter the house.

The constable led the way with Ky and the sheriff in tow. The worn, wooden front door creaked threateningly as she pushed it open. Once they all were inside, she quickly closed it behind them. The three of them simply stood quietly for a moment. The draped windows only allowed barely enough light to see the scene of carnage.

"You were right to send for me," Ky said softly, his voice a great deal less confident than it had been just a moment before. "Yes, completely right…"

Though the entryway looked completely clean, blood had been splattered over each of the living room's four walls, floor, and – defying all reason – the ceiling. The floor rug in the center of the room had been soaked with it, erasing its previous color and turning it into a patch of darkness. Two of the reported four victims were supposedly in this room, though how the coroners came to that conclusion was unknown. Quite a few more than two dark masses of flesh were visible thrown around the floor. Some looked like they'd been cleanly severed from their respective owner's bodies; others looked like they'd been torn off and gnawed at. Some were simply so mutilated that all attempts at analysis failed.

"A human simply lacks the magnitude of strength and violence that would be needed to kill someone in this way," the knight continued, trying to make as much sense of the scene as he could.

"What could it have been? A Gear!" the old sheriff exclaimed.

"It's possible… you're _certain_ it wasn't some sort of animal?" Ky demanded.

"Absolutely. Our eyewitness clearly saw that it was a man that walked out of the house," the constable stated.

"It may have been a Gear; that narrows the list of suspects quite a bit… it could have been a breed of heteromorph… it could have even been a Nightwalker, though very few still exist," the gears in Ky's mind were moving, "… and no motive to speak of?"

"None." The constable said coolly despite their situation. "The only thing we've managed to glean is that it was probably a stranger. A random act of violence. Some neighbors reported that they'd been warned earlier that day that a dangerous stranger would be passing through town and to stay indoors."

"Then another question we have to answer is 'who gave the warning?'" Ky wondered out loud. "I am going to recommend that you start tracking down this other person back here while I search for the murderer."

"You're crazy, you know that?" the sheriff interrupted quietly. He was staring at one of the dark patches on the floor. "Going after something that could do this…"

Ky didn't respond at first. In the dim, gloomy light of the house, his gold hair and sky-blue eyes only seemed to shine the brighter.

"It doesn't matter how powerful they are," he said, steely determination leaking into his voice. "Crimes like these will not go unpunished."

* * *

-Author's Note- 

Yes, this chapter is one of the reasons why my fic has a "T" rating. One of many. XD

For some reason, I decided that S-Ko would have foul mouth…it was inspired a little bit by the girl from "The Exorcist", I guess. I hope you're still enjoying my fic (assuming that's why you're still reading it, anyway). I loved being able to fit Ky into here; I'm almost as fond of him as I am of poor, cute Zappa. He'll be showing up a few more times along with some other characters.

Again, thanks for reading!


	3. Cpt 3: One Winged Angel

**One-Winged Angel**

(no, this is NOT turning into a FF7 crossover... continue reading, please XD)

* * *

The sun burned on Dizzy's face. She opened her eyes, but had to squint against its bright light. Shading her face with one hand, she pulled herself slowly from the ground. Her clear ruby-red eyes scanned the unfamiliar trees around her.

"Where am I…" she said softly, confused. She sat disoriented in the grass for a moment before the memories came flooding back to her.

"Oh! That woman with the guitar knocked me off the May Ship. I must have landed here." The fact that she'd just fallen several thousand feet out of the sky didn't seem to unsettle her in the least.

Dizzy stood up, her feet feeling a little unsteady, and searched the cloudless blue canvas of sky above her. Neither the ship nor her friends were anywhere in sight. Suddenly, she caught sight of the line of dried blood caked on her right arm. She gasped, and as she touched the cut it had flowed from she winced in pain.

"Ouch! Did this happen as I fell? It doesn't look too bad, but… Undine!"

As Dizzy had been looking over her shoulder, she saw one of her wings, not folded neatly against the curve of her back as it should be, but dragging lifelessly along the ground behind her. Its white feathers were stripped away and bloody in places. Still, she felt no pain. Both her wings had minds and feelings of their own.

"Undine… please, be okay." She prayed, holding the wounded wing gently. There was no response.

An unfamiliar voice groaned from somewhere behind Dizzy. "Ohhh…. My neck! Not again…"

Whirling around to face the voice, Dizzy saw that only a few feet behind her was a man laying prone on the ground. As she watched for a second, he made a gallant effort to push himself out of the dirt but failed miserably. Dizzy came to a sudden realization, and she gasped before running to the injured man's side.

"Oh no! My powers must have gone out of control again… I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

He managed to tilt his head to look up at Dizzy as she knelt next to him. Her words did not comfort him.

"Eeeek! S-she's still here! Get away from me, please!" he yelled, suddenly trying to scramble away from her.

Dizzy looked crestfallen. "Wait, don't go! I promise not to hurt you!"

The man's eyes looked wide and panicked and his body stayed tensed, but he stopped trying to flee.

"That's not…what I'm af-f-fraid of," he said, voice stuttering badly.

With an apologetic expression on her serene face, Dizzy reached over and put a hand on his back. He flinched a little at her touch, but didn't try to run again.

"It's okay. Here, let me help you," she grabbed him by the shoulders and helped him into a sitting position. She could tell that he was pretty beat up; his white clothes looked worn out in spots and old bandages covered parts of his arms and chest. Leaves stuck out haphazardly from his chin-length brown hair, which was held out of his face by a circlet with a cute pink heart on the forehead. Another heart was printed on the slick, skintight fabric of his shirt.

He sighed tiredly. "I passed out again, didn't I? That means… oh, great, now my arm's all messed up, too…" He started fidgeting around with his elbow, which seemed to be bending outward further than a normal arm should.

"You shouldn't do that! You'll hurt yourself more," Dizzy said, concerned. "I'm very sorry about attacking you. All I remember is falling off the ship, then waking up here…"

"Attack me? What?" the young man was extremely confused. "You didn't… wait… you were sitting over there… and this t-thing came out of your wing when I went towards you…"

Dizzy nodded. "What happened?" she asked quietly.

"Well, I guess I just fainted," he said, a little embarrassed. "I don't remember anything after that. But you don't understand; when I faint…I…I…"

He swallowed, but couldn't get the right words dislodged from his throat.

"A-are _you _okay, Miss Angel?" he asked instead, sounding even more remorseful than Dizzy.

She could only blush for a second.

"I'm not an angel," Dizzy said with a small smile. "I'm just… well…" She didn't quite know how to explain it without exposing something she didn't want to.

"I'm an 'exception'." She concluded.

Her companion just looked puzzled, but for once he didn't ask.

"I'm just a normal guy," he said in response, but he started feeling self-conscious again and had to look away. "I don't think there's anything really special about me. Not like you."

"What's your name?" Dizzy asked, suddenly more curious just because of his comment.

"Zappa," he replied, turning back towards her. "What's yours?"

Though she'd known that he would ask, Dizzy was reluctant to answer.

"I can only tell you if you promise not to tell anyone that you saw me," her soft voice held a strange sense of urgency in it.

"Sure, I promise," he said immediately. "I can tell you're not some kind of outlaw. No way! And I've seen some real criminals since I left home." His eager trust made her feel more at ease, but she couldn't help but think she was taking advantage of him somehow. She was, after all, a wanted woman in a way.

"Okay…"she started quietly, as though someone might overhear. "My name is Dizzy."

"Dizzy?" Zappa repeated, several times louder than her hushed tone, "It's a wonderful pleasure to meet you, Miss Dizzy!"

He extended one black-gloved hand with a smile; she was puzzled by the formal gesture for a moment before she reached out her own, shaking his hand gently. Zappa had a broad, very amiable smile, the kind that comes from a lot of experience.

"You don't need to call me 'miss'…" she said, smiling back.

Zappa's smile suddenly vanished, replaced by a look of horror. "Oh no! You really _are_ hurt!" he cried, pointing at her shoulder.

He'd caught sight of her injured arm and wing, lying limply in the grass behind where she sat. Immediately he went searching through one of his bags, and before Dizzy could say anything he'd pulled something out of them.

"Here, Doctor Faust gave these to me, but you can have them," he said, sounding very upset. In his hand were two rolls of gauze bandages.

"Oh… thank you," Dizzy said, taking them a little reluctantly, eyeing his own wounds. "Are you sure you don't need them?"

"No, I want you to take them! I have more, anyway," he insisted. "'Better safe than sorry,' my mother _always_ says that! And I didn't know for how long I'd be… um…well…" he trailed off, looking uncomfortable.

"Aahh… I guess it's just good to be cautious."

After a few minutes, Dizzy had successfully bound up the bleeding parts of her wing with the bandages and Zappa actually managed to start walking, though his legs looked very wobbly and he kept moaning melodramatically.

"Ow, owww… my whole body's aching again… and I was doing so much better today!" he said, leaning heavily on the trunk of one tree near the edge of the clearing.

As she walked over towards him, Dizzy's wing was no longer dragging in the grass; it was wrapped tightly against her back with clean white gauze. Her black wing still hovered over her left shoulder, casting its long shadow over her head.

"You didn't happen to see anyone around here, did you?" Dizzy said anxiously. "I should start looking for my friends. May… April… they must be worried sick."

He shook his head, apologetic. "I don't think anyone else is around here. But… I guess… I need to go, too."

"Are you looking for something, too?" Dizzy asked, "We could look together."

Zappa turned towards her, and his blue eyes lit up as he smiled in sudden hope, but the light immediately went out.

"I… I can't," he said, sounding miserable.

"Why not? We would be safer if we walked together," Dizzy reasoned. She felt just as concerned about her new, injured friend as she was about her own problem.

"I'm worried about… if I p-pass out again…" he tried unsuccessfully to explain. He was starting to dread the thought of being alone again, now since he'd had his first real conversation with another person in weeks. He started to fear it even more than the thing that he knew would eventually invade his body again.

"…I can't come with you unless you promise _me_ something," he repeated Dizzy's own words, suddenly adamant.

She wondered what kind of secrets someone so normal-looking could possibly contain. "What is it?" she asked, half-curious and half-worried.

"If I start to feel funny… or if I faint, you won't try to help me," he continued. His words sounded ominous in Dizzy's ears. "You have to promise to just run away."

Her eyes went wide with disbelief. "I can't do that!" she cried.

"Please!" pain actually became audible in his voice. "I do want to come with you, I really do, but… I c-can't risk th-th-that!"

One of his hands reflexively moved to cover the red stain on his sleeve.

"Please, Dizzy…" he pleaded.

There was a very long silence, but finally Dizzy relented.

"I don't understand this at all, but… okay…" she said, her face knotted in worry.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

Zappa sighed in relief. His whole body relaxed against the side of the tree. With those two beautiful words, all the conflict inside him evaporated.

"Thank you…" he breathed. As soon as he'd spoken, somehow Dizzy knew she'd be sorry she ever made that promise.

"Are you okay now? Do you think you can walk for a while?" she asked.

"Sure!" Zappa exclaimed. Cheer unlike anything he'd felt since the start of his bizarre illness washed over him. "Let's go find your friends."

And with Dizzy leading the way, the two of them took off into the west.

* * *

-Author's Note-

I think I needed to write more of a cute chapter after that last one. Well, the next one won't be a picnic for Dizzy or Zappa, either… so I hope they're enjoying this one. XD

I'm in the process of writing chapter 4 as I speak, so if anyone wants to correct some grave mistake I'm making, now is your chance!


	4. Cpt 4: Justice

**Justice **

"Companion to our demons

They will dance

And we will play…"

* * *

Neither May, April, Johnny nor any other of Dizzy's companions had made any appearance the entire day.

Zappa did feel sorry about that, along with being unable to tell his friend about his 'illness', but despite both of those he was having more fun than he could remember for a very long time. Not only had he fainted just once the whole day, but he also had someone to talk to as he continued on his hike through the forest.

Of all the things he liked to do, talking was one of Zappa's favorites.

"…so instead, I fell off the side into the lake… luckily, I'm a pretty good swimmer!" he finished one especially long and elaborate story with a laugh. After Dizzy had shared some happy memories about the crew of the May Ship, he decided to tell her some stories of his own to pass the time. He told her about his own friends, his hometown, and how he worked in the summer running a tour boat off the coast.

"…but you've never even been to Australia?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

Dizzy shook her head. "I don't think so – if we flew over, May didn't say anything." Her shy smile still brightened her face a little, but he could tell she was becoming more despondent as the day progressed. Sadness gathered around her ruby-colored eyes, making their gaze slowly sink towards the ground.

"You know," he said, trying again to cheer her up, "I think I remember seeing a girl with an anchor a few days ago. I mean, how many people would walk around carrying that!"

"Really?" her face lifted at the mention of May.

"Yeah! At least I think it was a few days ago…" he pondered, suddenly unsure, but he kept rambling on. "It's so hard to keep track of the days, fainting all the time… well, anyway, if your ship's been around here since then, wouldn't you think that they would look for you here?"

"That does make sense," Dizzy responded, and a little spring went back into her step. Her healthy wing suddenly didn't seem to hang as heavily over her shoulder.

Though it didn't seem to Zappa that they'd been walking for very long at all, the sun's angled light soon took on the warm, orange tinge of sunset. The rays that managed to penetrate the dense treetops bent their two shadows into long, black robes trailing behind them. Despite the warm glow, the wind was already starting to bite with the chill of evening.

"I don't think we're going to find them today," Dizzy spoke up suddenly. She gazed at the darkening sky one last time before her eyes fell back down to her companion.

"It's still light out! We shouldn't give up," Zappa exclaimed.

"We can keep going tomorrow," Dizzy said. She still sounded disappointed, but she had accepted the fact she'd be separated from her friends for a while longer.

"They could be looking for me right now… they might even find me first!"

"I guess…" he said hesitantly. "As long as you're sure… let's find someplace they can see us from above."

As they continued walking, he added, "A flying ship… that's just crazy."

By the time the two of them came across another small clearing, it was almost dusk.

"Hey, this should work!" Zappa concluded after surveying the open area. Long golden grass grew in a dense mat between the trees, but as long as they stayed in the center of the clearing they should be easy to see.

"Okay," Dizzy agreed after catching up to him. "Let's stay here."

But as the two of them started smoothing out a patch of grass to sit in, a new dilemma entered Zappa's mind.

How was he going to sleep?

He froze in place, a caricature of worry, as he realized what might happen. What if the creature inside him decided to take control again as he slept?

"Um… Miss Dizzy?" he said, slipping back into his typical over-politeness. "I-I think I should go now."

"What? Why?" Dizzy said, standing up straight in alarm from where she'd been kneeling in the grass.

"I can't stay here… It w-won't be safe for…"

"You aren't going anywhere," a stern voice called out suddenly from the trees behind them.

A tall figure stepped out of shadow as the two of them whirled around in panic.

He wore the white, high-collared overcoat of a police officer, but the large blue cross design cut into the center of the jacket proclaimed him as something more – a Holy Knight. A determined frown was engraved into his face, framed by gold-blond hair. One of his hands gripped the hilt of his sheathed sword tightly and his steely blue gaze fell straight down on Zappa.

"Officer Kiske?" Dizzy recognized the police officer immediately, but not his intentions. "What's going on…?"

His eyes flickered towards her for a moment, then darted back to his target. "It's good to see you're still well, Dizzy… but are you aware of whom you're traveling with?"

Dizzy's eyes went round as she turned to face her friend standing next to her.

"Officer, what's wrong!" Zappa cried, wilting under Ky's lethal gaze. "W-why are you looking at me like that…"

"You don't look dangerous at all," the policeman continued as though he hadn't heard him, "But your trail was ridiculously easy to follow, and it led straight here from the crime scene. It has to be you. There's no other way."

"C-crime…" Zappa stuttered softly, his mouth going dry. His stomach was starting to churn and knot inside him.

"I am placing you under arrest as a suspect in the murders of Samuel, Dana, Bethia and Paul Leinfeld," Ky spoke blankly. His grip on the sword tightened. "If you try to resist, I will take you in by force."

Zappa could only stand motionless, eyes wide and blank. Suddenly, horrifyingly, it all made sense.

He found the red stain emblazoned on his arm; stared at it for a moment before holding it out to Ky as evidence.

"Th-this blood… I knew s-s-something happened…" he started, his voice hoarse and quavering, before it swelled into a terrified cry, "P-please, take me in!"

The look of shock on Ky's face matched Dizzy's. That was the last thing he'd expected a monster that killed and mutilated an entire family to say.

But Zappa wasn't done. He stumbled towards Ky, his hands stretched out in supplication, making the police officer jump back and draw his sword.

"I don't want to hurt anyone anymore! Take me – quick, before… before…"

That's when the world started to spin around him.

"Oh… no…"cold sweat broke out all over his body. Familiar darkness was creeping in on him from the edges of his sight as he started losing his balance. He had to fight it this time. He had to.

"Di-Dizzy, run!" he yelled

The sound of her name snapped her out of her trance; she started backing away from him, but found that she couldn't detach herself from the sight of his quickly fading consciousness.

"You… prom…" he said before his eyes finally fluttered shut.

It looked to Ky as though the young man would fall to the ground, but as his body started going limp it twisted itself into a painful-looking contortion. A strangled kind of cry came out of Zappa's throat.

"What's happening to him!" Ky demanded, turning to Dizzy.

"I don't know!" she answered, her red eyes fastened onto his form, twitching and tying itself into knots in front of her. A strange tingling feeling was spreading along her skin, making her hair and feathers stand on end.

Zappa suddenly bent over backwards, his spine folding in on itself, and faced the confused police officer standing on guard a few yards away from him. His eyes looked strangely white, and a wide, vacant smile was plastered onto his face.

"YOU AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE," he mocked, his voice leaping several octaves.

Dizzy didn't know whose voice that was, but she knew it couldn't be Zappa's.

And then she felt the wave of spiritual energy hit her with the force of a gale. She cringed and shielded herself from it, but managed to look up at its source. With a Gear's eyes she could see the portal forming around Zappa's body; a black orb heavily inscribed with symbols she didn't recognize. The Gatekeepers - three huge, black centipedes – spiraled around the portal, tearing it open further. Something was coming through.

Ky, with his fully human eyes, could not see any of the dangerous magic spinning around his foe. But he could see the Three Gatekeepers' hideous wormlike forms, and electrifying his sword until it crackled with blue sparks, he leapt forward.

A black animal, snarling and foaming, launched itself out of the portal and knocked him to the ground before his sword could hit home. The orb around Zappa's body abruptly disappeared; the centipedes sank back into the ground; but the summoned spirit remained.

The ghostly creature, a giant black dog, now stood guard obediently next to its master. Its skeleton was faintly visible inside its flesh and its red eyes glared menacingly at the fallen policeman. With each ragged breath it took, blood and foam poured out of its mouth.

As Ky rose to his feet and rushed forward with a battle cry, both Zappa and the hellhound lunged savagely at him.

Dizzy's body was now tingling so badly that both her hands and feet had gone numb.

"What's… happening…" she said, panic gripping her as she stared at her own outstretched hands. A shadow fell over the woman; she looked up abruptly to see what had cast it.

Her black wing was unfurling, rising high above her head. Clumps of feathers morphed and shifted into claws, and Necro's skull-like, hollow face appeared, gazing towards the fray.

"Necro, what are you doing?" Dizzy called out to the creature, but he did not respond.

The black wing shoved Dizzy aside, and with a mighty heave, launched a spinning war hammer across the clearing – straight at Ky. The police officer had actually been holding his own against his two opponents until the projectile smashed into his chest.

"Necro! Stop it!" Dizzy screamed. Power was flowing out of her every cell, and with her other guardian out of commission, all of it was draining into Necro.

Ky rose to his feet a second time, coughing thick droplets of blood, and glared at the young winged woman.

"You… you _are_ with him!" he accused.

"No! It's not like that at all!" she yelled back. Against her will, Necro was dragging her forward, clawing eagerly towards the injured policeman. She focused on everything she'd learned to desperately try and stop the flow of power within her body, but she could only succeeded at slowing the stream a bit, not damming it completely.

"Please, officer, you've got to run! My power's going out of control!"

"I'm not going to run!" he roared stubbornly. "I can't let him go! I saw what he did with my own eyes!"

Enraged, Ky turned back towards Zappa and the dog, who were both leaping at him with rabid looks on their faces, and an arrow of white-hot lighting flew off the tip of his sword as he swung it. It knocked the young man backwards through the tall grass, and as he flew through the air the hellhound at his side immediately vanished.

Though she was digging her heels into the ground and fighting with every mental weapon in her arsenal, Dizzy was nevertheless pulled towards the policeman with Necro looming tall above her. Ky spun around just in time to block a black claw that came thundering down on top of him. But as he saw Zappa lurching back onto his feet out of the corner of his eye, he realized he couldn't last long against three magical opponents if they all attacked him at once.

Her world spiraling out of control and with her every effort thwarted, Dizzy cried out to the only other person who had the slightest chance of turning the tide of the battle.

"Zappa!" she yelled, her hands clamped down on her ears as though to block out the chaos around her. "Stop it! Wake up!"

It seemed for a moment that her plea fell on deaf ears, but as she screamed his name a second time, something flickered across his face.

He froze in place, half-bent, and his eyelids started drooping closed.

"Wha…" he mumbled, dazed, just before his muscles snapped tight again, and a hiss of threat escaped his lips.

It was just the opening Ky had been hoping for.

He lunged, sword poised; and before the demon could wrest back full control of Zappa, Ky's blade sliced deeply into flesh. Much too late to stop him, Necro howled in anger and lashed out, his fist slamming into the policeman and sending him into the ground.

"DAMN…YOU…" Zappa wheezed, falling to his knees and clutching at his stomach. Despite his efforts, blood kept gushing out from between his fingers, all over his white clothes.

She couldn't take it anymore. Everyone around her was dying.

Dizzy closed her eyes and screamed. She screamed and screamed until all the breath was squeezed from her lungs, but sound kept forcing its way out of her mouth.

Inside her body, the electric stream of power began to turn. It shuddered for a moment before something snapped; and the river was diverted away from Necro.

Dizzy felt like her eardrums were about to shatter, but the piercing scream coming out of her kept getting louder.

Her power had to find another outlet.

The gray, twilight forest lit up brighter than a sun. A pure white orb of light hung motionless above the clearing for a moment, curiously silent, before it exploded. Searing air that flattened trees and scorched branches rushed outward, trailed by a wall of deafening sound. As Dizzy's power finally drained itself, the white light was extinguished.

She stood frozen in the sea of singed grass. After the release of so much power, her body felt cold and weak, and Dizzy could only stand heaving for breath for a moment. Somehow, she'd managed to loose her power without her guardians – something she would have felt quite proud of if the situation weren't so dire. Necro had disappeared, his life-source drained for now. But Dizzy had others to worry about.

She had to scan the dim clearing before spotting the crumpled form of the police officer. She ran towards him and parted the tall grass with one hand - though Ky was still breathing, he'd been knocked thoroughly unconscious by Necro's blow. All in all, he'd miraculously escaped with only scrapes and bruises.

But where had Zappa gone?

An unexplainable fear suddenly washed through the girl's body.

"Zappa…?" she called out cautiously, turning away from the knight. She couldn't be sure if he would attack her, but she had to find him. As she ran towards the center of the clearing, the tall stems of grass lashed against her legs. It took an entire minute of searching before Dizzy found him, hidden in their shadows.

Zappa lay curled up on one side; red, slick-looking burned patches on the exposed parts of his body. Dizzy didn't notice the black, wet pool spreading out from beneath him until she knelt in it.

"Blood…? Oh…!" she cried, holding one hand stained with the liquid up to the fading sunlight.

"Zappa!" she screamed at him, but he didn't stir. His face looked deathly pale. She timidly placed one hand on his chest, and for a moment mistook his shallow breathing for none at all. Tears slowly clouded over her vision.

"Zappa," she whispered. For all her confusing and wonderful powers, Dizzy realized just how helpless she actually was.

* * *

-Author's Note!-

Well, after a long, difficult semester of classes and a lot of problems with my account grr... Chapter 4 is finally up! I'm such a lazy ass sometimes. Now that winter break's come around though I should have a lot of time to work. :D Chapter 5 (and some editing), here I come!

Dizzy: "Oh, please hurry! He's in grave need of medical attention!" ;;

p.s... A huge thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read (and especially review) my story so far!I getwarm fuzzies and tinglies and all other kinds of pleasant sensationsevery timeI see that a new review has appeared.


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